Dear authors,

first, let me apologize for the long time it has taken to reach a decision. As you surely are aware, this has been a complicated case. Initially, I received two conflicting reviews, after which I solicited a third. The third referee was hard to find, and took some time deliver the review. Now I have the three reviews, and they still give conflicting assessments, while focusing on quite different parts of the paper.

Reviewer #1 was involved in the first round of reviews and is happy with your changes. Reviewer #3 saw the paper for the first time, and is largely happy with it. However, she/he points out some caveats in the theoretical/modelling part of the paper. In particular he/she is concerned about whether your diagnostic criteria are actually diagnostic and asks for some additional discussion on the pitfalls of using your results on real landscapes, for example, when choosing an incorrect value for the concavity.

Reviewer #3 (Gabet) presses similar points to those he made in the open discussion. His assessment focuses on the Sierra Nevada field study, without commenting on the other parts of the paper. As a result, I find his review one-sided and biased, and his overall negative assessment of the manuscript is in my mind unjustified. Yet, he does make some notable points, and clearly he was not convinced by your replies.

It is not my task as AE to decide on a scientific debate or take a side in it, nor would I have the necessary expertise to do this. In addition, it does not seem to me that this paper is the right place to conclude this dispute. My suggestion is to let the community decide on the merits of either point of view. Here is what I propose: Please add a paragraph to the discussion, explicitly acknowledging that there are conflicting interpretations, giving a succinct summary of the debate in the discussion forum and in the subsequent exchanges, and citing the key references. For additional details, you can refer the reader to the literature, and to the evidence documented in the discussion forum, which seems rather comprehensive to me, for example by including a web citation.

I think the necessary changes to the paper in response to the queries of reviewer #2 and #3 are moderate and can be made by adding suitable paragraphs to the discussion. As a result, I have decided on minor revisions. However, I reserve to send the manuscript out for review again in case the reviewers’ concerns have not been adequately addressed within the paper.

With all the best wishes,

Jens Turowski


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4.9 Seidl

Dear authors,

thanks for the new version of the article. I think you have implemented all necessary changes. I have one further request: within the added paragraph on the debate with Gabet, please add explicit references to the discussion as a link (for example, Gabet, 2019 in the text, Gabet, E. 2019, interactive comments in the discussion phase, https://www.earth-surf-dynam-discuss.net/esurf-2019-24/#discussion, last accessed XXXX; similarly for your replies). In addition, I would like you to add a citation of Gabet's GSAB paper (https://doi.org/10.1130/B35128.1) at a suitable point, for example at the point where you currently cite the Beeson and McCoy paper.

Thanks for working constructively with me on the difficult review situation.

All the best, Jens Turowski

Dear Authors,
I am pleased to follow the advise of AE Jens Turowski and accept your manuscript for publication in ESurf. I know that your manuscript has had a tough ride, and have monitored the situation carefully. Thank you for working with Jens to deal with a quite extraordinary challenge in the form of strong comments. Please will you make the final courtesy corrections that Jens has suggested? After this, your manuscript will be taken over by the publishers of Copernicus. Your swift response to their prompts will help expedite the publication of your work in its final form. I very much look forward to seeing your paper in print. Thank you for trusting ESurf.
Niels Hovius